Views near Golden Grove

It’s been a long time since I’ve posted a Block Island sky scene in this blog. Time to remedy that. We’re back on the island after more than three months away. The autumn equinox is almost two weeks past, so the sun is setting and rising a little bit south of due west and east. That means the sun is now setting over Sachem Pond again.

September 2, 2013

September 2, 2013

And it’s rising over the woods and bushes east of the house.

September 3, 2013

September 3, 2013

But the real sun show of the day yesterday was neither the sunset nor the sunrise. It was a fortunate late-afternoon confluence of clouds and sun that created a bright sundog.

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September 3, 2013

Views near Golden Grove

I thought you might enjoy this photo of a genuine sundog (parhelion) sighting on the island. It’s unusual because the clouds look more like some hybrid of stratus clouds than like the cirrus clouds that usually produce sundogs. But there must have been ice crystals in these clouds, whatever they were, for the sundogs to form.